Dear Katie,

I’m sorry that the beet rosti didn’t work out! The recipe does have a somewhat narrow sweet spot, so I suppose it was sort of mean of me to suggest it as a first attempt at cooking beets. I hope you’ll give it another go if you get beets again – feel free to bug me with questions!

I’m intrigued by your box this week, because you finally got your meat share! I’m sure it’ll be noticeably better than most of the meat available at the grocery store, and I’m jealous as usual. The first thing that popped into my head was Buttermilk Roast Chicken, probably because I made it last night. It’s easy, delicious, and the chicken is still tender even if you overcook it like I did yesterday (oops). Even with boneless skinless chicken breasts, you get juicy, flavorful chicken, especially if you marinate it for about a day. But that recipe, while magical, is simple, and I wanted to up the ante a bit and incorporate more ingredients from your box.

Somehow, while brainstorming, I ended up thinking of our cooking adventures in college. There was one summer when I got it in my head to make Boeuf Bourguignon (a bit ambitious for a dorm kitchen). It took way longer than I thought on that crappy stove, so we just hung out in the dorm drinking the extra Two Buck Chuck (because, college) waiting for the beef to be tender.

Thus, the recipe for this week was born: Coq au Vin! It’s exactly the same as Boeuf Bourguignon but with chicken, so the cooking time is significantly reduced. And let’s be honest, there are few things more pleasurable than cooking with wine. It makes everything taste better, it fills the kitchen with a delightful aroma, and you get to drink the extra wine while you cook.

Now, I’m not one to try to reinvent a classic like Coq au Vin, so I’ve included a link to a recipe that best fits what I would do. I’d use the chicken leg quarters, separating the legs from the thighs. I don’t really know that I’d change anything in terms of the preparation and cooking method. I’m not sure if the additional mushrooms and pearl onions are worth the extra effort, and the croutons are nice but certainly not necessary.

I’m always of the opinion that I should try to use as many CSA vegetables as possible at once, since it seems like I’m always on the verge of getting a significant backlog of vegetables. To that end, I’d be tempted to include the kohlrabi in with the onion, carrots and mushrooms. It’s definitely not traditional (sorry, Julia Child) but it’s certainly a welcome ingredient and its flavor isn’t going to overpower the dish. When I first got kohlrabi in my CSA, I hadn’t heard of it, much less cooked with it. Naturally, I looked up what to do with it and I found that kohlrabi translates to “cabbage turnip” in German. To me, that’s an ingredient tailor made for stew.

With the kohlrabi, that makes six CSA ingredients for the dish, assuming you have any bacon left from your plans for it. I hope you’re not too sick of salad greens and strawberries yet. If you have too many strawberries and they’re starting to go bad, you can make a strawberry compote by cooking a mixture of quartered strawberries and sugar in a saucepan until the strawberries are very soft (I did this today with a box of strawberries that I bought and forgot about). I have some vanilla ice cream in the freezer that most certainly needs to be topped with a big dollop of strawberry compote.

I think the Coq au Vin is somewhat involved so I’m hesitant to throw another time-consuming idea your way but I’d imagine that stuffed cabbage with the ground beef would be quite tasty. The pork chops and collards would also make a nice pairing. I believe it was you who gave me a recipe for broiled breaded pork chops, which I still use quite often! Those pork chops with braised collards and grits would be fabulous. I stole that idea from my favorite meal in New Orleans: the Pan-Fried Pork Shoulder from Sylvain. It’s a disc of shredded pork shoulder that’s breaded and fried, served with braised greens and grits. My memory of it might have been influenced by the pre-dinner Hurricanes, but it ranks among the top five meals of my life.

I think this might be the first week that I’ve touched on every ingredient from your box. I certainly rambled enough to make that happen. Although I focused primarily on the Coq au Vin, I hope you can find some inspiration in at least one of my suggestions for this week. Looking forward to hearing what you make!